Computers for everyone are great, but not if you can't teach the basics
Although, total Mac-head that I am, I'm happy that Cobb County has decided to get spiffy new Apple iBook G4's for every high school student and teacher in the district, I'd be far happier if it would spend as much effort and money teaching biology and other sciences properly, rather than trying to sneak the pseudoscience that is intelligent design into the classroom as "science," mandating deceptive anti-evolution stickers on biology textbooks, and wasting its taxpayers' money on costly legal battles to defend those ridiculous stickers in court--and losing.
At least the kids in Cobb County will get to have über-cool computers. But if the creationists trying to hijack Cobb County's science education get their way, one thing they won't get is a good education in biology.
At least the kids in Cobb County will get to have über-cool computers. But if the creationists trying to hijack Cobb County's science education get their way, one thing they won't get is a good education in biology.
A relevant quote:
ReplyDelete"Suppose it were music the nation is concerned about. Our parents are worried that their children won't succeed in life unless they are musicians. Our musical test scores are the lowest in the world. After much hue and cry, Congress comes up with a technological solution: 'By the year 2000 we will put a piano in every classroom! But there are no funds to hire musicians, so we will retrain the existing teachers for two weeks every summer. That should solve the problem!' But we know that nothing much will happen here, because as any musician will tell you, the music is not in the piano!"
-- Alan Kay, "Revealing the Elephant: The Uses and Misuses of Computers in Education."
Oh heck, figure out software upgrades, wear and tear, replacement costs for the ones that get lost.
ReplyDeleteBooks are much cheaper.
Ask a student what the last book he read was.